[log in to unmask] wrote:

>The DII COE is the Defense departments "Common Operating Environment".  Each
>of the 3 services (Army, Navy/Marines, Air Force) was doing software
>acquisition in a vacuum, making it hard for the 3 services to have their
>computers talk to each other and participate in joint operations.  To remedy
>this, the COE is supposed to severely limit the platforms you can use for
>development.  It specifies things like, what operating system can I use,
>what programming languages can I use, and in theory provides a large library
>of reusable code, common installations, etc.  It has a friend called the
>"Joint Technical Architecture", which specifies web browsers, web
>development software, office applications, etc.

With no disrespect intended, let me say that my vantage point is quite
different from Professor Carlisle, and I would say:

     DII COE is a marketing coup by (mainly) Sun and (partially) HP
     to "lock in" future computer contracts to their way of doing
     things.  For instance, in contrast to an open interface like
     LDAP the proprietary Sun NIS-plus directory interface is required
     for authentication purposes.  The coup was not complete, however,
     because Microsoft was able to get wording added to have NT be
     "grandfathered" even though it does not meet the list of technical
     requirements.

Homework question -- Has Microsoft committed a blunder because they are
replacing NT with Windows 2000 ?

Larry Kilgallen